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Riley: Reading Works is model for workforce training

Mary Olczak, left, has been a tutor at the Dominican Center in Detroit for the past nine years. She is seen here at the center with one of her students, Teresa VanArsdale, 48, of Detroit who is getting help with geometry and is well on her way to getting her GED with Olczak’s help.(Photo: Eric Seals Detroit Free Press)

The good news is that Gov. Rick Snyder, some state legislators and many education officials have finally begun focusing on the challenge of training people with limited reading skills to get jobs that exist and that are coming.

The great news is that several community organizations, businesses and metro leaders across the region have done the same through the Reading Works initiative, which vets, convenes and supports literacy agencies in many ways, including helping raise money for them to do their jobs better.

The best news is that this mission has people like Mary Olczak.

Olczak was born and raised in Ecorse and lives in Allen Park. She was a senior security supervisor at the Renaissance Center before General Motors moved in.

When she left that job, she looked for ways to give back to her community and found the Dominican Literacy Center. That was nine years ago. In that time, Olczak has taught 22 people to read — more than any other tutor. And she has no intention of stopping any time soon.

"I love reading!" she said with the excitement of someone who truly love books. "I love to read, and I want others to enjoy it as much as I do. Not to mention, I believe so much in the importance of education."

Olczak is among hundreds of volunteers across the region helping adults to improve their reading skills to earn GEDs or enter job training that requires a higher level of reading than they attained in school. The increased effort to improve reading comes as Snyder touts Michigan as a business-friendly state ready for companies to move in.

That can happen only if the state has qualified workers. That means improving reading, encouraging trade skills and ending the cycle of poverty that is fed by poor schools.

For Olczak, becoming a tutor has become not just her donation to Detroit, but also her passion.

"In the beginning, I was working in the computer lab," she said. "But then, I was maintaining the lab plus tutoring students how to read on the computer at that time. Right now, the philosophy of our program is one-to-one tutoring. I start sometimes at 10 o'clock in the morning and don't leave until 8 o clock at night, three days a week."

Olczak, who graduated from Ecorse High School before earning a bachelor's in accounting from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Madonna University in Livonia, now works with six students a day. And she has had many success stories, including a student she helped to pass her citizenship test, another who got his first driver's license at age 26, and still another who is, she said, "a sliver away from getting her GED."

"I will continue to work with her until she gets her GED," Olczak. "I will not stop until we're successful. I wouldn't give it up."

Teaching people to read benefits more than the improved reader. Olczak also has made some lifelong friends.

"The young lady I helped to get her citizenship, she and I still keep in touch quite a bit," she said. "I have lunch with her many times during the month. I cannot turn down a good home-cooked Polish meal. That is some incentive."

Olczak hopes talking about her work will encourage others to join the cause and become tutors, something she said benefits the teacher as much as the student.

"The experience is so hard to put into words, she said. "It's an abstract experience. I know the need, especially the students that can't read. I love reading, and I feel so bad for people who can't do it. It is totally delightful when a young student meets their goals. I don't plan to stop until God tells me to stop."

Contact Rochelle Riley: 313-223-4473. Follow her on Twitter @rochelleriley. Read more about the Reading Works initiative in today's "A Better Michigan" section.